


The Thieving Fox

by Metallic_Sweet



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: (what is nobility without people to serve?), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, During Timeskip (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Fairy Tale Elements, Fictional Religion & Theology, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Getting to Know Each Other, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Original Character(s), Valentine's Day 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-22 16:09:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22718680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metallic_Sweet/pseuds/Metallic_Sweet
Summary: In 1181, Ferdinand takes subordinates and escapes from the Empire.In the summer of 1184, Ferdinand encounters the Hunting Wolf.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd
Comments: 20
Kudos: 123





	The Thieving Fox

In the second year of the war, the annals of the Church of Seiros note: 

Ferdinand takes subordinates and escapes from the Empire. 

Ferdinand von Aegir, in the years following the war, is a central figure to the unification of Fódlan. Directly after the end of the war, he brought his people back to Aegir and focused on restoring and reforming his territory. His success eventually gained him an invitation from King Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd to serve as his official advisor for Adestria. The two shared a steady and widely admired partnership, rooted in mutual respect and shared goals.

At Dimitri’s death, his last will and testament entrusted his personal papers to Ferdinand, who received them and stored them away from prying eyes. Several decades after their deaths, the memorandum on both the Savior King and the First Advisor of Adestria expired. At this time, the extent of the partnership between these two leaders became known. 

But this is not that story. 

This is a story of their lost days, when they were without their titles and deep within the war.

The sky is clear the day Ferdinand finds the bodies. 

They have been exposed to the elements for some time. Ferdinand dismounts Annie and ties her to a tree so she doesn’t wander. He steps carefully, eying the bickering carrion birds vying for their bits and bobs. He guesses from the number of Imperial helmets that there were nine bodies at one point. He is not concerned about the number. The scene is very fresh, flies only beginning to lay their eggs where the foxes and birds have finished squabbling. He won’t need to be concerned with the next regular patrol for hours yet. 

“Oi,” he says and he clangs his gauntlets against each other, causing the birds to jump and caw in irritated alarm. “Away with you! Shoo! Shoo!”

They hop and scuttle off the haphazard pile of bodies, shrieking their frustration. Ferdinand grimaces, stepping carefully around the gore and debris as he sights what he was looking for. He takes the scrap linen from his travel pouch, covers his hand, and uses it to extract the distinctively coloured medical supply pouch still attached to the hip of the dead bishop. Aside from the gore, it is in perfect condition. Ferdinand steps away from the carnage, examining the full kit of concoctions, antitoxins, and even five elixirs. 

He doesn’t sigh with relief, but that is only because he doesn’t want to smell the scene any more than he already does.

This is not the first scene like this he has come upon, nor is it the first time he has taken supplies from the decimated Imperial patrols. Even so, he feels no small amount of guilt as he returns to Annie to transfer the contents of the kit to his own. He has only stooped to stealing recently as the cost of even basic medicinal herbs have skyrocketed. Trade agreements for essential ingredients for antitoxins with Albinea have officially expired and collapsed. There is no amount of honest work that Ferdinand can do to afford things that even gold can longer buy. The summer is high, and he has people who depend upon him to be whole and hale. 

Thinking of his people: it is easy to justify much of what Ferdinand has done these past two years. He sets the empty bag on Fire to burn to ash, consoling himself that the next patrol will find the bodies. He knows the routes well, and the next patrol will be through in the evening, likely alerted by a messenger that the previous had not arrived in Varley. This likely means that the routes will be changed and the number temporarily increased. Ferdinand will need to get everyone moving again. 

It is not optimal. The weather is too warm to travel far and fast, and a couple of the children have been showing signs of whooping cough. He mounts Annie after stomping out the last of the Fire, considering the options. 

Behind him, the crows squall and beat their wings as they scatter. 

Ferdinand turns, his hand already wrapped around the handle of his short axe. 

Through the flurry of black and the haze of the heated, stinking flesh: 

There is a one-eyed man. 

“Ferdinand,” the man growls.

It is a voice clearly not used to human speech. He moves forward, stepping in worn shoes and ill-fitting trousers directly in the gore. His hands hang at his sides, but Ferdinand can see he carries a good steel sword at his side and two pole weapons covered in a dirty cloth at his shoulder. He is right-handed, and his gauntlets show heavy use. In his dirty, threadbare clothes, Ferdinand can tell he is both taller and wider than himself. 

This is the Hunting Wolf. The one who hunts Imperial patrols with beastly abandon. The one that Ferdinand has been tracking since the end of winter to scavenge medicine from his kills. 

The war has made beasts out of them all. 

“Ferdinand von Aegir,” the Hunting Wolf says, stopping two horse-lengths away and in the worst of the gore. “That is you, isn’t it?” 

“I am Ferdinand von Aegir,” Ferdinand says, peeling his tongue from where it dried at the roof of his mouth. “I –”

“So I have not been dreaming,” the man says, lower and to himself even though he does not take his eye off Ferdinand and the hand he has still on his axe. “You have been following me…” 

Ferdinand nods. He curses himself. He should have known that the Hunting Wolf would catch on eventually. It is a miracle it took this long. A part of Ferdinand is less surprised than he should be, which means unconsciously Ferdinand did expect this or similar to happen eventually. He had focused more upon the possibility of being caught by Imperial forces. That, more than the Hunting Wolf or other human scavengers, occupies his thoughts. That is the most dangerous outcome for his people. 

They are traitors to the Empire first. All other terrors come second. 

“I thought,” the Wolf says, and he blinks, eye moving to take in Ferdinand’s face, “surely, it is not you… stealing from Imperial scum…”

“And what of it,” Ferdinand grits out, and he starts to tighten his grip on his axe before he forces his fingers to still; the Wolf looks back at his hand. “You of all people –”

“I know why,” the Wolf says, and he glances at Ferdinand’s face again and holds his gaze. “I have been watching your current camp for the past,” and he twitches his left hand and head, like dislodging a fly, “quarter moon or so.” 

Ferdinand does tighten his grip on his axe then. “We are not Empire –”

This draws a sharp, grating laugh. It exposes the Wolf’s teeth through chapped lips. 

“Clearly,” he says through the ghastly grin.

But then, strangely, he sobers. He shifts from the balls of his feet to his heels. His hands hang limp. Ferdinand sees suddenly how tired the Wolf looks, and how hollow his cheeks are. His eye is blue, and Ferdinand –

“Do you know who I am?” the Wolf asks. 

Ferdinand does. 

Garreg Mach is a mess. 

Ferdinand does not have time nor the energy to process this yet. Two more children and an older man have contracted whooping cough. Ferdinand helps lead Annie, who pulls the sick in their only cart, over the disused road into what was once the monastery’s marketplace. The bags of meager supplies the cart had held have been tied to the backs of the two donkeys Ferdinand had the stroke of wisdom to purchase a moon ago when he last chanced visiting a village with a functioning market. 

Ahead, Dimitri climbs the broken stone stairs to the ruined castle. He doesn’t turn to see what Ferdinand and his people are doing. He is too busy muttering to whatever he thinks is to his left. No one attempts to follow him. Ferdinand senses if his people did not have such faith in him and know that they have no better choice for temporary shelter, this is the point he would be abandoned. 

“My lord,” Rolondo, his House healer, whispers as Ferdinand moves to help him lift the feverish children from the cart, “is this wise?” 

“No,” Ferdinand says because he has a policy of not attempting to fool anyone including himself. “But I do know this place, and the Hunting Wolf is not interested in attacking us.” 

He does not, in fact, know what Dimitri wants. He accepted Dimitri’s offer of Garreg Mach because he has as much choice as his people and the only acknowledged authority to make decisions. He also does not want to fight Dimitri. He knows well how Dimitri’s strength has grown. Ferdinand cannot risk leaving his people without a leader.

Ferdinand helps carry the sick to the infirmary. He gives Rolondo the bag of medical supplies as the healer sets up at Manuela’s old desk. Rolondo accepts it, his mouth pressing shut when he opens the satchel and sees the contents. He does not speak, and Ferdinand does not offer an explanation. He wishes, more than a little sadly, that this was not a familiar interaction. 

“Do not forget to bathe today, my lord,” Rolondo says as Ferdinand steps into the hallway. “You have been around the sick too long.” 

“Yes,” Ferdinand says.

He does not attempt a smile. Rolondo knows him better than to believe it. He turns and is on his way. 

The rest of the daylight is spent setting up his people in the dormitories. Families have their own rooms, and others are willing to share. More than a few people express pleasure with the dusty but otherwise solid walls and roof above their heads. Since winter, they have been sleeping in caves and tents. Ferdinand smiles, nods, and lets those who are happy be. Most are less than concerned about the Hunting Wolf. Ferdinand’s tracking and excursions have been his own. He also did not introduce Dimitri to them as either his moniker or his true name. 

“A fellow wanderer,” he had said when he returned to camp with Dimitri standing well away from them and rubbing his left ear. “A little odd, but I know the place he recommends.” 

Ferdinand cannot help but worry over this lie by omission. He heads over the bridge to the Cathedral with a bucket he found in the dusty, ransacked kitchen for the well. His thoughts chase themselves around in his head, his own words bouncing in the echoing chamber of his own skull. They are accompanied by the coughs of the two weakest children and Rolondo’s tight-lipped silence. 

There are no right choices. Just options and their consequences. 

This is a fresh rope on the well but no bucket. Ferdinand ties the handle of his bucket to the end of the rope, suddenly aware that his gauntlets also need a cleaning as do his doublet and sleeves. He feels, with the unhelpful noise in his head, utterly exhausted as he lowers the bucket. He watches it descend in the growing twilight. 

There is a heavy step behind him. 

Ferdinand startles, head whipping around as he grabs and stills the crank on the well to prevent his bucket from plummeting and possibly getting caught on the sides. In the fracturing twilight: 

“Dimitri,” Ferdinand breathes as the hulking figure stands still at the uneven side entrance to the cathedral. “You must stop scaring me.” 

The only response he gets is a grunt. Dimitri moves a couple steps forward before stopping again. He’s coated in dried gore and dirt. Ferdinand can smell his stench well. 

“Are you afraid of me,” Dimitri muses, an unkind grin on his cracking lips, “noble thief.” 

Ferdinand clenches his fist. He turns the crank, not taking his eyes off of Dimitri. Listens to the splash of his bucket hitting water. 

“Better a thief than abandoning those who depend on me,” he says as he turns the crank to make sure his bucket is filled. “Everyone thinks you are dead.” 

“I am dead,” Dimitri says. 

He takes no offense in Ferdinand’s retort. His smile doesn’t change, but he might not have another to offer. Ferdinand begins to turn the crank to lift his bucket from the well.

“You are alive,” Ferdinand says, his exhaustion causing his tongue to run further as his temper gets the better of him. “And you certainly smell it, too.” 

Dimitri barks. It takes Ferdinand a moment to realise it is laughter. He finishes pulling up his bucket as Dimitri chuckles to himself, breaking eye contact with Ferdinand to look down at his tattered clothes and stained trousers and shoes. His skin is smeared with dried gore and yellowed sweat. The only clean things on him are his weapons. 

“And you bring disease to holy ground,” Dimitri muses as he lifts his gaze to Ferdinand, who takes a careful moment to grab his bucket’s handle and untie the rope. “Whooping cough and who knows what…”

“If you were truly dead, you would not care,” Ferdinand points out, rather meanly as he lifts his full bucket between his hands. 

This earns him another of those unpleasant laughs. Dimitri shifts, much like he did when they came upon each other earlier in the day. His head, slightly tilted, makes his grin ghastly again. 

“You are funny,” he says before turning back towards the cathedral side entrance. “Noble thief.” 

“Hunting Wolf,” Ferdinand grits out.

He stands still, watching Dimitri disappear in slow but steady strides into the cathedral. It isn’t until a long time has passed since Dimitri passed out of view that Ferdinand begins his own trek with his full bucket back towards the kitchens. He forces himself not to look back over his shoulder and thinks forcefully about how he will light Fire in the disused hearth to boil the water first to drink and then for a sponge bath. 

He thinks, too, of how bad Dimitri smells and wonders when was the last time he had a bath. 

Ferdinand’s people, including Rolondo, love Garreg Mach. 

“My lord,” Rolondo says on the third morning as Ferdinand lights the hearth in the infirmary, “I may be premature, but I believe this is one of the best decisions you have made.” 

Ferdinand stares at Rolondo for a full second before he feels the heat off the Fire too strongly and extracts his hand from the hearth with a hiss. He straightens, shaking out his hand with a grimace. Rolondo smiles at him, fond and mild in a way he hasn’t been in a long time. It makes Ferdinand’s chest clench. 

“I apologise,” he says, moving to help Rolondo lift the kettle onto the hook over the heat, “but what do you mean?” 

Rolondo continues smiling as he turns his attention back to the herbs he’s sorting through on his desk. They were stored, completely undisturbed for four years, in Manuela’s abandoned work chest and apothecary drawer set. While Ferdinand in his youth had not had the patience for herb work, he recognises now that most of these are the rare sort they had no chance of accessing. With this store, Rolondo will be able to make medicines sufficient for them into the next year. 

Ferdinand risked all their lives for a fraction of this.

“We need somewhere to rest for a while,” Rolondo says, one of his comforting roundabout answers. “You, too. Perhaps now you can teach someone else how to make Fire.”

“Perhaps,” Ferdinand says.

They both know that none of the other adults have magical talent. Only eight of the children are old enough to learn, but their parents are all hesitant. It is understandable. Magic is volatile if not taught by a master. Rolondo only knows white magic and has an admitted fear of Ferdinand’s mediocre propensity for Fire and Thunder. Ferdinand is no master and knows this well. 

The professor was teaching him Thoron when the war came. 

Thinking of the professor brings Ferdinand back to their old room. It is the only one that has not been set up for living, instead acting as storage for clean laundry and the small overflow of personal supplies. Ferdinand opens the door on his way to the greenhouse, looking around as if it will stir further thoughts beyond the aching grief the memory of the professor brings him. 

The room, full of his people’s personal effects, offers no comfort. Ferdinand picks up a small box of seeds that was found undisturbed on Byleth’s desk and shuts the door. He moves towards the greenhouse, feeling outside his own body. 

He remembers, as he joins a couple of former farmers already at work, the last time he saw Byleth. The professor’s light green hair looked almost silver in the afternoon sun as they charged after from the monastery to the great dragon that had descended from Garreg Mach’s great height upon Imperial troops. Ferdinand cleaved clear the head of a slightly more distracted Imperial soldier. 

There was a lot of blood. Ferdinand does not remember very well the sequence of his actions in battle that day, but he knows that he killed at least one other in the confusion. He broke his sword.

And then the earth began to shatter and Garreg Mach was lost. 

The truth of the matter is, even if he had wanted to, Ferdinand could never serve Edelgard after that day. He is not certain of how many, but he killed Imperial forces. He turned, in the doomed defense of Garreg Mach, against his own. He believed less in any particular cause but rather in the conviction that he could not attack Garreg Mach, which was full people even more betrayed and confused by Edelgard’s ascension and conquest. So, when the professor took up the Sword of the Creator and stood against the approaching army, Ferdinand chose his side. 

Ferdinand does not regret it. How could he when he has had to sacrifice everything except the very core of himself to keep his people safe after they were stripped of security when Edelgard tried to collapse House Aegir? She did not care for those who depended upon the House for their livelihood and the security of the territory’s walls. Their lives were hard already with Ferdinand’s father, their long hours of labour barely putting food in their mouths and keeping a roof over their head after taxes. By so abruptly striping the House of its title, wealth, and power, she threw Ferdinand’s people to the mercy of bandits, pestilence, and war eager to devour the weak and helpless.

So Ferdinand stole all he could carry, took his people, and fled. 

These are not bitter thoughts. Ferdinand thinks of them as he walks across the bridge to the cathedral with two empty buckets with the numbness that he has grown used to over the past couple of years. He knows that he used to feel different emotions when he thought about those days earlier on, but such feelings are difficult to remember. Some days, especially as he wandered with his people struggling alongside him, all that he had room for was the constant fatigue that he could not acknowledge for fear of giving in. 

The sun is not yet high, but the summer feels too hot. Ferdinand ties one bucket to the rope and then abruptly feels so dizzy he has to brace himself with the bottom of the bucket on the side of the well. The fatigue is so strong that his very bones ache. He blinks, vision spotting. He wants nothing more than to sit down. 

Just for a little bit. 

When Ferdinand comes to, his body aches. He feels awkward. Sweaty but so cold. 

“Ferdinand,” a rusty, guttural voice says right next to head, “are you lucid?” 

It is a great effort to rouse himself. His vision won’t focus properly, but he can smell Dimitri. Not as strongly as the last time they saw each other a few days before but still distinctly sweaty and ill-kept. He is sitting next to Ferdinand on the pitted stone floor of the inside of the cathedral. His right hand, which is closest to his face, is surprisingly clean. 

“Dimitri,” Ferdinand manages, but he doesn’t have the energy to say more or even turn his head to find his face. 

“I guess that’s a ‘yes’,” Dimitri mutters before he shifts, a strange and awkward motion. “You’re sick.”

_I don’t have time for that,_ Ferdinand wants to say, but he is too tired.

He must have dozed off or zoned out because the next thing he knows is Dimitri and Rolondo’s voices are floating around his head. 

“– overwork himself,” Dimitri grunts. 

“I will not suffer unsolicited opinions of my good lord’s conduct,” Rolondo says, waspish. 

“I have no issue with his conduct,” Dimitri says, a growing edge to his tone. “As you are his retainer, I am criticising you.”

It is a monumental task, but Ferdinand forces himself to make a noise. They fall silent. It takes a moment, but Ferdinand manages to pry his eyes open. He stares at the blurred, wobbling ceiling of the infirmary. His peripheral vision seems to be quite limited. 

“Am I sick?” he asks because he doesn’t have the mental clarity to attempt to address their more complex conversation. 

“Yes,” Rolondo says as Dimitri snorts. “Our… friend brought you to my office. Do not worry, my lord. I believe this is a bad cold. You do not have the plague.” 

Dimitri mumbles something that mentions Manuela. Ferdinand cannot hope to process that. He already feels like all he can do is accept the current situation and go back to sleep. 

“Go to sleep,” Rolondo says, and he leans into Ferdinand’s line of sight as he adjusts the sheet that had bunched over Ferdinand’s chest due to his stirring. “You must rest to get better.” 

Ferdinand, lacking any further energy, does as he is told.

When Ferdinand next comes to, it is dark. 

He senses, however, that there is someone watching him. 

“Ferdinand.” 

Dimitri. He turns his head in the direction of the voice, which reveals that Dimitri is at Manuela’s desk. He stands, a hulking, shadowed figure in the single candle’s light. 

“Do you want the toilet?” 

Ferdinand breathes in. Out.

“Yes,” he says, suddenly urgent.

Dimitri helps him with the toilet. He doesn’t smell now, and Ferdinand feels that the sleeves he wears are clean. It does not make Ferdinand feel secure as he is also able to feel how Dimitri twitches without clear reason. 

He helps Ferdinand back to bed in silence. Ferdinand lies back down, head spinning slightly from the exertion. Dimitri, after helping lift Ferdinand’s feet back onto the cot, stands still, looking down at him. Ferdinand, looking up, is able to focus enough to see the blue of his eye.

It is as it once was back when they were students in this place. Focused and sharp with the darkness that seems to have taken over Dimitri just behind that. 

“You remind me of a fox,” Dimitri says as Ferdinand’s vision blurs and sleep grasps him.

And because Ferdinand is ill:

He feels himself smile.

“A fox,” he murmurs, closing his eyes. “I thought I was a thief.” 

Dimitri breathes out. Not a laugh. 

“Foxes are thieves,” he murmurs, following Ferdinand into slumber, “and they are noble, too.” 

Ferdinand is made to rest for two weeks. 

He is not properly ill after three days, but Rolondo as well as his battalion leaders, Sophia and Garret, take turns guilting him into relinquishing his usual physical duties. 

“If you get sick again, what if it’s the plague?” Sophia finally argues as she blocks Ferdinand from water duty. “Who will make sure we have Fire to keep us warm when there is nothing to burn?”

Ferdinand backs down. He knows that the past winter, when they not only had periods where they had to aggressively ration supplies but nights without shelter from the rain, was a deeply traumatic experience for everyone involved. There had been deserters, of course, but most had stayed, especially after one deserter turned up dead, floating down the bloated river. He had no wounds. The best Ferdinand could guess is he slipped on the muddy ground and fell in. 

The trouble is that without work to occupy himself, Ferdinand’s mind focuses on these sorts of thoughts. He sits by the fishing pond and tries his best, although he catches less than he should with his wandering mind. He spends most of his time helping to teach some of the older children from the monastery’s collection of readers. The stories are dry and uninteresting until a young girl, Elizabeth, who Ferdinand has noticed likes singing, discovers a dusty book of children’s fables in Seteth’s old office of all places.

“Please, my lord, may we read from that instead?” Bruno begs.

He is the ringleader of most of the children, despite not being the tallest and certainly not the strongest. Ferdinand senses he may have some budding talent in Authority and some sensibility in white magic. He is not studious, though, and Rolondo has little patience for those that don’t apply themselves. 

“Alright,” Ferdinand says because he himself is very bored of reading about the Goddess. “Let me see…” 

There is a wonderful selection of stories. Ferdinand flips through the contents, just as engrossed in the various illustrations that accompany each story as the children are. He recognises some of the moralistic tales, such as about the race between the rabbit and turtle, but there are others, including an odd story about multiplying bullfrogs and another bizarre tale of a wooden doll come to life. Ferdinand hears himself humming as he tries to decide, the children unusually patient as he ponders which fable both he and they should read first. 

They are all so engrossed in the book that no one notices Dimitri’s approach. 

“Ah,” Dimitri says, which makes Ferdinand startle and bite his tongue to silence his instinctive shriek, “the fox is with the cubs.” 

The children are very still. Ferdinand has raised the book to throw as a makeshift weapon, able to still it only because it is heavy enough it took him a bit longer to heft over his head. Dimitri eyes them all from his slouching stance in the dining hall’s doorway. He is wearing, to Ferdinand’s continued surprise, clean clothes. It looks like a modified academy uniform but without the jacket. He wears most of his armour aside from the breastplate. 

Ferdinand lowers the book. He stands, carefully setting it on the stool he had been seated on. The children take the cue, now well ingrained in them, to get behind him. 

Dimitri notices that. His eye flickers as Ferdinand steps forward. 

“Ferdinand,” he says, and abruptly Ferdinand is reminded of Hubert of all people and how, in the rare moments he seemed to feel warmth or remorse, he would call people by their names, “I wish to speak with you.” 

“Of course,” Ferdinand says, and he is aware that Bruno has scooped up the book of fables; he hopes the boy has the good sense to lead the children further away. “Let us speak somewhere comfortable.” 

Dimitri pauses, a barely noticeable thing. 

“You are supposed to be resting,” he says. 

“I have rested,” Ferdinand says, and he steps forwards, very purposefully. “Let us go to the cathedral. Perhaps we may pray.”

“Pray?” Dimitri says, absolutely mystified, but he moves to follow Ferdinand’s lead. 

Dimitri has been living in the cathedral. Ferdinand had suspected as much, but it is different to see outside of his illness where Dimitri has dragged bedding, a couple of chairs, and a full table into the undamaged space that houses the saint statues. The statues themselves are quite clean. Ferdinand stops for a moment to admire the statue of Saint Cichol. The beginnings of gold leaf that Byleth had applied have survived scavengers and recently been washed of dust. 

“How long have you been staying here?” Ferdinand can’t help but ask as Dimitri drags a chair towards him. 

“Not long,” Dimitri grunts; he stares at the chair until Ferdinand sits down. “I do not know how long until someone takes interest.”

“Well –” Ferdinand starts.

“I am not telling you to leave,” Dimitri growls, pulling over the second chair and sitting on it with his legs spread and feet flat on the ground. “You have people you must care for, and you are not caring for yourself.” 

Ferdinand grits his teeth. He cannot argue with Dimitri, who carried him from the well and then to the infirmary. He senses, too, that Dimitri watched over him during the worst of his fatigue-induced illness and that his improved hygiene is connected with him as well. It is more than a little infuriating. He cannot even argue that he was perfectly fine before they met. He was, after all, tracking a known mass murderer and stealing medical supplies. 

He has not missed that Dimitri has not gone out to murder Imperial patrols since they made base at Garreg Mach either. 

“We do not know each other any longer,” Ferdinand says because they really don’t. 

“You betrayed the Empire,” Dimitri says, equally not a criticism, “so I do not have a quarrel with you.” 

“Edelgard betrayed me first,” Ferdinand says because while it isn’t a criticism, he needs to be clear. “I have no quarrel with you either. I rather do not wish to owe you a debt.” 

“You cannot owe a corpse a debt,” Dimitri says, and he frowns but not at Ferdinand. “And if you wish revenge on Edelgard, we share a common goal.”

Ferdinand purses his lips. He does not want revenge, although he is aware many of his people do. For revenge, Ferdinand would need to have feelings and desires that have become so distant from himself that they are likely forever lost to him. It does not hurt him except when he notices how obviously his apathy towards himself pains others. 

All Ferdinand desires is to see everyone happy, healthy, and safe. With the war dragging on and ever worsening, it is an impossibility. 

“I wish for the war to end,” Ferdinand says because that is the only truth here, “so that I may do right by my people. If that be with Edelgard’s death, then so be it.” 

Dimitri is silent. He stares at Ferdinand, much as he did when they first met over the corpses. In so many ways, Ferdinand realises, perhaps that was their true first meeting. 

Dimitri, the Hunting Wolf, covered in his kills. 

Ferdinand, in desperation, scavenging for survival. 

Whoever they once were in those academy days –

They met in the stables. 

Since Ferdinand can remember, he was always an early riser. As a child, he would climb out of his nursery bed in the dim light of the rising sun to peer out the window, which faced east. Once he was out of nursery, he had a pony, and he went every morning regardless of the weather to the stables. He wasn’t tall or strong enough to help muck them out until he began to grow at twelve, which was late by many standards. He grew upwards rather than increasing his bulk, which surprised everyone far more. 

By the time he arrived at Garreg Mach, he was seventeen and still slender despite his hard work in the stables and training yard. His lack of bulk did bother him then, especially in the face of Edelgard and Caspar’s raw power. His speed paled in comparison to Petra, and there was never any hope that he could match any true mage in spellwork. Ferdinand had never been the sort to shy from his failings, but the first few months surrounded by natural betters was not easy. Ferdinand had, despite himself, never been gifted at making friends. 

Bernadetta’s eyes were better than nearly everyone else’s but Ferdinand did not envy her. She was too similar to him. Different, of course, because Ferdinand would wilt without the sun or someone alive and conscious to talk to. But her family had similar values to his own, and he remembered well that they could have been matched. He didn’t understand her interests, but no one was as interested in armour in the same way he was. For the short months they shared at the academy, Ferdinand liked to believe they were friends, especially once Byleth allowed them to join Blue Lions in the Wyvern Moon. He never tried to fool himself regarding anyone else. 

For their world was never one for friendship. There were knights and their liege lords, and there were commoners and nobles. There was the Church with the Archbishop and the worshippers. Everyone was born in the light of the Goddess, and everyone lived, died, triumphed, and suffered beneath Her distant, impassionate gaze.

This is what Dimitri and Ferdinand talked about in the stables. Dimitri was there at the same time as Ferdinand from the very first morning when Dimitri’s uniform still smelt of the mint common of Fhirdiad laundries. They introduced themselves and spoke of inconsequential things on the way to morning mass, and Ferdinand saw that Dimitri prayed with a distant, disengaged look he recognised from his own face. Later, Byleth paired them together for weekend duties, and they spoke of more than just the weather and upcoming saint days.

“Thank you for joining the Blue Lions,” Dimitri said, a couple of weeks after Ferdinand did and just days since the Remire Calamity. “I am sorry that our first battle together…” 

He stopped and looked down at the fresh hay. Ferdinand looked at the set of his jaw. Not clenched. His lips were thinned over his teeth. 

_I will cut you to shreds!_

“There are no apologies for what is done on the battlefield,” Ferdinand said.

He was a little surprised by his own words. It made the smile that stretched his lips feel strange as Dimitri lifted his gaze in wide-eyed surprise. 

“We dance with death,” Ferdinand said as Dimitri gazed at him in the early autumn sun, “either as leader or follower. In battle, one must strive to have the lead. 

“If you do not, you die.” 

Even in those academy days: 

“I recognised you,” Dimitri says. 

Ferdinand stares at him. Behind Dimitri, the statue of Saint Macuil looms. Its repair is not to the level of Saint Cichol nor Saint Cethleann, but the bronze has not turned green again, despite the years of war. 

“I thought…” and Dimitri breaks eye contact, looking down at his knees and hands. “You make no sense as a ghost.” 

Ferdinand breathes. He wonders, if he still had feelings, what he would feel. 

Shock, maybe. Unease, probably. If he was much younger, he would be afraid. 

But now: 

“A ghost cannot lead,” Ferdinand says, and he holds Dimitri’s eye when it lifts to his own. “If you truly feel you are dead, then I will not argue. I do believe, however, you are wrong.” 

“Wrong,” Dimitri says, a growl just behind the word.

“Yes,” Ferdinand says, and it is easy because he was born to debate with emperors and a king is not so different. “The dead cannot touch the living, and the living can only follow the dead. You chase living prey and hunt like a pack of wolves. In this, I believe we are similar.”

It draws a laugh from Dimitri. Still a bark but with some real humour on the sound’s edges. He smiles at Ferdinand. Like he can barely believe he is real. 

There is light to his eye for the first time since they met. 

“Similar?” Dimitri echoes, and he leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Ferdinand, you do yourself a disservice –”

“I am right,” Ferdinand says.

Dimitri’s jaw snaps shut. He eyes Ferdinand in a manner that gives away that he is replaying all of their recent interactions. It brings a smile to Ferdinand’s lips. One Dimitri will recognise. 

Outside, the summer is heavy. The greenhouse’s overgrown plants are still healthy. Rolondo is eager to sort through them for more herbs and edible flowers and roots. The children play by the pond, trying to catch fish with their bare hands. There is no worry about their safety. In Aegir, unlike many other Adestrian territories, everyone learns to swim. 

Thanks to Dimitri, Ferdinand has been able to steal them more time. To make his people a den against the wind and rain and those that will do them harm, Garreg Mach is once again a sanctuary. It is not holy, nor is it cursed. 

Ferdinand serves his people. He will see them safe, no matter what the cost to himself. 

“I understand,” Dimitri says.

This is his noble pride. 

_Later (but not so very long):_

_Byleth wakes up. They climb the stairs and chipped stone floors of Garreg Mach. Fresh corpses of Imperial forces litter the pathway._

_At the top, in the light streaming in from a broken skylight:_

_They find Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, crouched and splattered in gore. He peers, exhausted and wary and disbelieving, from the shadows. And before they can approach:_

_“Professor?”_

_Ferdinand is in the left archway. He has a bucket with clean linens in his left hand. His right is clenched on the handle of a hand axe that has seen use. Further behind him, an old healer stands, open-mouthed in shock._

_Ferdinand stares at Byleth. He is wary but offers no more fear than Dimitri, who breathes out a short, wondering sigh._

_“You’re alive.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to connect with me on [ Twitter @Metallic_Sweet](https://twitter.com/Metallic_Sweet)!


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